Poets’ Corner

I may never make it to Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, but I did visit the gravesite of Mari Sandoz.

You are all readers, do you have a favorite Sandoz book? Have you read any of them? Mari is buried where she grew up. Her father was a tyrant and a dreamer who chose to live in a pretty uninhabitable place then encouraged lots of other people to homestead the area too. He felt the Sandhills would support fruit trees, even though God didn’t see fit to plant anything but the occasional cottonwood or willow in the Sandhills. Some of those trees still remain. You can also see the orchard (the brown trees) in the landscape shot taken from the gravesite.

Sandhillers tend to trust people to be on their best behavior- as you can see the site is privately owned. Old Jules is the story of her father. Mari went on to write 16 books about the west, mincing no words and not romanticizing like many authors of her time.

I attended a wedding this weekend and drove through God’s Country, the Nebraska Sandhills. Folks, there is a whole lotta nothing out there, and it is gorgeous. Unfortunately it does not really lend itself to amateur photography.

I stayed with friends and got to see Naked Maiden Falls.

(And from the top of the falls)

I also came home with two dead bugs to add to my collection! Traveling with me is lots of fun. I am forever taking photos of flowers (or digging them up) and trying to catch bugs to take home. At first it seems charming, but after a couple of years I suspect it gets old. This gorgeous fella kept flirting with me last week. He has no idea how badly I wanted to take him home with me. I might even go back for him tomorrow…